And I continued listening to the show when I landed a job writing for a video game company and was very suddenly thrust from Chicago to Oslo, Norway. The show was one of the familiar things I brought with me when I jumped far out into the big bad world. I followed the exploits of the occult detectives Sparrow & Crowe (you can now follow them in comic book form as well). In more than one culture, sparrows and crows are psychopomps, beings who guide others between worlds. It was no different for me.

One great thing about the internet (and you have to take in the great things, in the face of YouTube comments), is it sometimes gives you the chance to keep in touch with the creators of the things you love. And somewhere along the way, I got to collaborate with them. Twice! First was for a prose Sparrow & Crowe anthology, Weird Winter Stories (containing my story “How to Kill Santa”).

And now round two! I give you Weird Romance. It is another Sparrow & Crowe anthology, this time centering on theme of the strangeness of love. There is a lot of variety here, a lot of twisted gems, fathoming the depth of the oddity that is l’amour. My story is “Harlow’s Fairytale,” and I’m rather proud of it, rather fond of the character Harlow. You should sit down and read her tale. There’s a frog prince…but it’s not very Disney.

Had a lot of fun doing an interview over at Writing & Whiskey.

Check it out:  Josh Doetsch: On the Creative Process.

Appearing in a Patrick Rothfuss blog meets my definition of a fine day. The occasion? Worldbuilders! It’s a fundraiser run by Mr. Rothfuss to raise money for Heifer International (they impress me not for being altruistic, but for their competence in their altruism). What is more, Lord Rothfuss has gathered a might confluence of books and related geekery. Donating makes you very likely to win some fine spoils. Giving and receiving meet in a wonderfully impossible alchemy.

But there is only one day left! Things shut down at 11:59pm on the 21st. Get thee there now!

Donate HERE.

See the remaining auctions HERE.

For every $50.00 donated, I will personally slay one invisible scuttle-goblin. They’ve stolen our car keys and socks, unopposed, for long enough.

(Warning: may contain supernatural cat.)

I take a cackling mad scientist approach to life. I’m more intrigued with the people and things I help build up, and less about the stuff I tear down. Defining yourself negatively, as a primary MO, is pensive and gritty in the short term, but in the end you’re left with only the shadows and empty space that accumulates in the crawly cracks between all the things you hate, that you stacked up in the DISLIKE pile, pointed at, and shouted, “Me!”

Grave robbing is fair play though.

Click the GIVE AS A GIFT button and fill someone’s digital stockings with weird winter fiction.

So gather, lumplings!

I had the good fortune of working with the creators of Sparrow & Crowe on an anthology of the winter weird, featuring their eponymous occult investigators. If you like to see more of the odd duo, check out their comic book (try out the free software on Comixology–I’d never thought I’d enjoy reading a comic on a phone, but it’s pretty sweet). Also see Sparrow and Crowe in their original appearance as part of the podcasted audio drama Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery (free to download from the website or iTunes).

Best of all, all proceeds from our anthology of winter weird goes to a charity: 826LA.

Check out my story, “How to Kill Santa.” It mixes Christmas, Santa, Norse undead known as the draugr, and hagfish! It’s Steven King’s It meets A Christmas Carol and a dash of Goonies.

Why I Write: George Orwell on an Author’s 4 Main Motives

An excerpt listing one of those motives:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen—in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all—and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

Remember, remember the fifth of December
Repeal the spirit ban blight
The way I hear it: thirteen years, no spirits
So have a drink tonight